India is examining a request from Bangladesh for the extradition of the country’s former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, the Indian foreign ministry spokesperson said on Wednesday.
The request – first made in December and reiterated this month after Sheikh Hasina was sentenced to death for her role in the killing of student protesters last year – was being examined in India as part of ongoing internal judicial and legal processes, he said.
Hasina fled to India in August 2024 at the height of the protests.
Sheikh Hasina was sentenced to death in her absence on November 17 at the end of a months-long trial that found her guilty of ordering a deadly crackdown on a student-led uprising last year.
A United Nations report estimated that up to 1,400 people were killed and thousands wounded — most by gunfire from security forces — during the anti-government demonstrations between July 15 and August 5 last year, the worst political violence in Bangladesh since its 1971 war of independence.
The interim government led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus described it as a “historic verdict”, but called for calm and warned that it would deal with any disorder.
After the verdict, the Bangladeshi foreign ministry called on India to extradite Hasina and former interior minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, who was also sentenced to death in the same case.
Hasina was represented by a state-appointed defence counsel who told the court that the charges against her were baseless and called for her acquittal.
The interim administration has governed the Muslim-majority South Asian country of 170 million people since Hasina fled.
Military ruler Hossain Mohammad Ershad was sentenced to 10 years of rigorous imprisonment in 1991 for illegally possessing firearms.
Bangladesh is one of the world’s largest garment exporters, supplying major global brands. The industry was hit hard by last year’s protests. –Agencies
